Its kinda of bollocks though, in that this isn't something invisible people can stick their heads out the window and not see more than 100m due to the smog in some cities. Or the sludge in the rivers...

Because Xi has made a pledge (yeah even though its a one party state they still have to make promises) to combat pollution.
People kind of give the CCP the benefit of the doubt sometimes because they see their lives improve a bit... things contrary to things getting better go against the CCP line. Kind of like how jobs figures and GDP are fudged in western countries to make it seem like it is better than it is.
Or how the party in Orwellian books edit news archives of the past to make predictions of Big brother look correct.

There's something called smoke? Smoke grenades, or simply injecting diesel into hot gas streams like exhausts, pump it forward and smoke particles absorb a tiny bit of energy each but since you're pumping out tons of it this doesn't matter as the smoke particles are replaced with more smoke particles pretty much instantly.
Most tanks even from WWII can create smoke via exhaust injection.

The thing is a lot of people don't realise is that THEY have the power. Simply boycott such companies.
If companies are viewed as bad people stop going to them. Tesco is a good example, they had scandal after scandal using workfare free labour, tainted food, bribery and tax evasion but seemed untouchable to the extent they could do whatever they wanted and had the government in their pocket. They always got planning permission and nobody ever investigated them.
This happened from 2001-2011 then people got tired of them and a small number of consumers went elsewhere pushing most of their stores into unprofitably. As a result they fired more staff and whipped them harder which made even more people hate them. People went elsewhere and they are in serious trouble now.
For instance I don't like ZHC (at will in the US) so I don't patronise any companies or organisations that use this sort of labour. I also don't like Ford cars as I bought a brand new one and it fell apart before my eyes. They will never get a penny off me again. Or shitty tactics like turbo tax thing. Never get any money again from me.
But you complain.... yet still buy again from them are they going to take your complaints seriously? Unless of course there is a total monopoly on a product.

Revolt? In the past body guards of tyrants would join in the revolution often in Roman times they were the assassins.
But if robotisation gets so advanced then what stops the political class living in compounds guarded by auto gun turrets which use lasers (so fewer moving parts and less maintenance and ammo costs) with killer robots to suppress crowds?
Look at 1989 in China they locked the local Beijing Garrison and brought troops from many provinces away to suppress the Tienanmen sq protests.

Sorry I was unclear.
I meant to say if a battleship had a CIWS like the Phalanx / Goalkeeper system which used lasers rather than the hard kill shells they use today. Then anti ship missiles and air power would be blunted severely against battleships.

The weird thing is the battleship may well make a come back. As air defences improve and use hit scan type lasers vs hard kill munitions. Air power may become less effective over time. Take for instance the Harpoon, it's comparatively slow compared to the Russian stuff. But it is designed to be fired in huge numbers to overwhelm air defence systems.
I remember Red Storm rising that a critical weakness of the Tico class was that it had a limited ammunition supply. While a battleship with a CIWS which has unlimited shots and can track super fast targets kind of cripples airpower and missiles (or is advertised to do so).